Swine flu cases widespread; no new cases here

Keeping up with new swine flu cases Saturday proved challenging as additional cases of the normally rare disease surfaced from Imperial County to Kansas to New York City.

San Diego County health officials said no new local cases of swine flu had been detected since the count here rose to four on Friday.

However, they continued to caution that more illnesses are likely to surface as local, state and federal disease investigators examine more people suffering flu-like symptoms.

“We have heightened our surveillance and put area healthcare providers on alert,” Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county's public health officer, said in a statement. “This will most likely generate additional cases of human infection with swine influenza.”

Alarm over the situation in Mexico intensified Saturday as health officials there announced 24 more suspected cases of swine flu. The outbreak, which is concentrated in Mexico City and appears to involve more virulent versions of the infection, has killed as many as 68 people and sickened more than 1,000.

Authorities also reported that a 35-year-old woman in Imperial County was hospitalized after contracting the disease in early April. The woman, who became the third swine flu patient in Imperial, fully recovered.

Kansas health officials confirmed the disease in a married couple living in the central part of the state after the husband returned from a business trip to Mexico last week.

New York City health officials said initial tests of nose and throat swabs taken from eight sick students at a Catholic high school in Queens indicated they might have swine flu. More than 100 students at the school had developed flu-like symptoms in recent days.

In the San Antonio suburb of Cibolo, Texas health officials closed a high school where two 16-year-old boys with swine flu attend classes. They said a third student at the school likely has the same infection.

Concern over the illness is growing as the widening geographic spread of the cases increased the probability that many others have been infected but not yet identified.

Like other types of influenza, swine flu typically creates a mild infection. Its rarity in humans and the lack of a vaccine for people mean that few individuals have antibodies to fight off the virus. That could lead to a rapid spread of the disease.

Mexican authorities in recent days have closed schools for millions of students in Mexico City, shut down public venues such a museums, and canceled hundreds of public events. Two soccer matches on Sunday are still scheduled, but they will be played in empty stadiums.

“We are concerned about the situation in Mexico,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of respiratory diseases for the CDC, said from Atlanta in a conference call with the media. “These are very dynamic times, and many things will be changing. It's very hard to predict the next step.”

A special panel of experts brought together by the World Health Organization to monitor the outbreak has decided to keep the global organization's pandemic alert status at level 3, even though some conditions for level 4 have been reached.

Earlier in the day, WHO director-general Margaret Chan warned that the virus' ability to move from one human to another created the possibility of its spreading globally.

“This is a serious situation which must be watched very closely,” she said from Geneva during a media conference call. “It has pandemic potential.”

Much remained unknown about the outbreak in Mexico.

It wasn't clear how many of the illnesses in Mexico have been caused by swine flu virus, human versions of influenza or other diseases that trigger similar symptoms. Only seven cases – all of them involving deaths or severe illness requiring hospitalization – had been genetically matched to the eight cases in the U.S. by midday Saturday.

More investigation was needed in Mexico before any measures would be taken that could trigger travel restrictions to the country or other efforts to prevent the illness from spreading to other nations, Chan said.

“With respiratory illness, we are very challenged,” Schuchat said. “There are many different causes, and they can look the same. It can take some time to put the whole story together.”

San Diego County health officials said people should continue taking normal precautions to prevent the spread of flu.

“If you are sick, do not go to work, school or travel. Cover your mouth when coughing, sneezing or blowing your nose, and wash your hands frequently,” Wooten said.

The CDC was moving forward with developing the seeds of a vaccine from the swine flu virus, but Schuchat said the agency hasn't decided whether to produce inoculations.

Even under the best conditions, large amounts of vaccine wouldn't be available for months, she said.